Pick of the Day: 1971 Fiat 124 Coupe

The Pick of the Day is a 1971 Fiat 124 Coupe, a rare survivor that would be an unusual and inexpensive Italian GT collector car

If you are looking to add a rare Italian GT car to your collection, the average going rate starts at around $30,000. That kind of money gets you an Alfa Romeo GTV or a Lancia Fulvia. Both are great cars, but what if you are looking for something more affordable and perhaps even a bit rarer?

The Pick of the Day, a 1971 Fiat 124 Coupe, should fill the bill. It’s advertised on ClassicCars.com by a dealer in Miami, Florida, who assures us that the store and inventory remain intact after Hurricane Irma.

The Fiat wears a good-looking set of non-original wheels

The ad for this car had literally no description but the pictures show a car that looks to be remarkably rust free and in what you would call nice driver-level condition.

The Fiat 124 Coupe is a car that for various reasons is often forgotten. One of the reasons is they can rust virtually everywhere. As a result, there are far fewer 124 Coupes left than there are Alfa GTVs and Lancia Fulvias.

The 124 Coupe has the same running gear as the 124 Spider, making for inexpensive parts prices and easy servicing, with the exception of body parts, which can be difficult to source if needed.

The interior looks to be in very nice shape

This is a second-series car, featuring modernized front-end styling and a larger displacement 1,608cc engine, along with four-wheel disc brakes and a five-speed manual transmission.

All the 124 coupes were styled in-house at Fiat, which is amazing when you see how nicely they look, offering a nice mix of design cues from both the Alfa and Lancia.

From behind the wheel, the 124 coupe is very much like the Alfa GTV, offering the same front-engine/rear-drive live-axle layout as the Alfa. Also like the Alfa, the Fiat has a double-overhead-cam engine, designed by legendary Ferrari engine designer Aurelio Lampredi.

The car offers good and forgiving handling with enough engine performance to be entertaining, and will leave an MGB in the dust while offering more comfort than any British car at this price point.

The Fiat 124 Coupe offers a level of rarity and exclusivity that no other Italian car at this price point delivers. If you take this car to Concorso Italiano in Monterey, you could well have the only 124 Coupe on the entire show field, no mean feat for a car with an asking price of only $15,900.